mica's blog
Justifying Going to Typo
With Typo happening a scant one hour away from me, I'm having a hard time not being tempted to attend. But really, why would a guitar designer that dabbles in letters need to go?
Cryptic Monogram Inlay
Desgined some custom inlays for the front of this guitar that were to represent "DD" without actually being two Ds. The result is a little like a sine wave, a bow, infinity, part of a treble clef, or lots of other stuff you can dream up. It even looks like two Ds if you know that's what you're looking for:
When we were almost finished with the guitar, I was looking at my sketchbook from working the fingerboard inlays out and one design stood out that had the customer's initials of "DDM" all folded up and cryptic. I was really excited when the customer loved it and said we could inlay it on the back of the peghead:
The wood is a dark Quilted Maple and the inlays are all in golden mother of pearl, all handcut.
Angry Paul Rand
Laughing at this!
http://twitter.com/AngryPaulRand
"You can blame me for Steve's attitude with the iPhone 4. When I did NeXT logo, I told him 'I'll give you 1 option, take it or leave it.'"
More letter inlays
First time we used Absinette for an inlay:
It's a little joke: the customer's name is Didier, so naturally DDA gets people to pronounce it properly!
The silver ring around the black mother of pearl letters makes a little more sense in context:
Erik's Love of Letters
Now at just over two, my son, Erik, is in love with letters.
He's tracing the letters on the side of the train car we rode at Train Town in Sonoma. I think he liked the sign more than the train ride!
Some things I'm learning from him:
Z is N
W is M
3 is M and sometimes E
8 is B
Every F should transform into an E
Every C should transform into an E
When you pronounce "R" it needs to really sound like a pirate, "AAAAAARRRRRR!"
Stuffed Felt Letters
Another person on Etsy if offering stuffed felt letters. I want to make my own, but first I have to select which font. Maybe something squishy like Cooper Black!
Knitted Letters
Stumbled across knitted letters when browsing around Etsy.
Sheet Music Title Page
Visiting at my friend Sandy's house, and browsing through her collection of sheet music.
Mother of Pearl Letters
A coupla more letters that James cut to inlay into a bass guitar fingerboard:
The letters are about .625 inches high and hand cut from a slab of mother of pearl with a jeweler's saw.
Budding Type Enthusiast
My son, Erik, loves letters!
He's 18 months old and notices letters everywhere, and yes, his favorite part in movies and cartoons is... the credits! I inherited this trait from my father, and so it's more evidence that love of letters can be genetic.
My Hairdressers Fleuron
I used P22 LTC Fleurons Garamont on my wedding invitations. My hairdresser loved the fleuron design that was on the PDF keychart, and now it's on her arm:
Cool Blackface Hoodie
A quick note so I don't lose track of this cool hoodie that I now need to locate.
Few more machines
Our old forklift:
Allen Bradley cover on a dust collector:
Mr Timesaver doing what he does best, saving time:
Letters from scraps
Usually we make inlays in pretty designs or type after agonizing over every detail. James made this with scraps from oval inlays to mark his big sanding block:
It spells "Fisher" and it's mother of pearl glued on the side of the block. It's so funky I love it.
Two More Machines
Our NC controller that we rescued in 1978 has this sculpted plate on the front:
We've modified the machine extensively, but we still use this controller's "brain" to machine the brass parts on our guitars.
We also have a three spindle printed circuit board drill made by Excellon. Here's the plate on the spindle head:
And the base has their name carved in gabbro granite across the front. It looks really cool:
This table is so large we had to have the building built around it.
More Machine Plates
This plate is from a short bed planer we've had for at least thirty-three years:
I've always loved this one from our shaper:
I think we've had this one for thirty-five years.
Had it all the time
So this shear has been in our shop as long as I can remember, which is at least 35 years:
It's my turn to clean up around it, and I'm just getting crouched down to sweep underneath, and the nameplate stares me in the face:
Wow! it's beautiful, right down to the red paint behind the brand name. I probably haven't looked at it since I was 3 or 4 years old, when it was at my eye level. Now I'm off to document the machine plates off the other old equipment we have around, though I'm certain this one is the oldest.
My Unix fortune today
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
Engraved guitar inlay
This inlay is a take on Woody Guthrie's "This Machine Kills Fascists." Here is the mother of pearl before we set it in the guitar:
More pictures and a story about the construction can be found on my website. We used Storm's Solpera as the basis. Even though the single line engraving didn't exactly mimic his design, I quite think the character of the font was preserved.
More type on guitars
Here's another nameplate inlay with letters carved through a slab of mother of pearl:
I also got some advice from Typophilers about the Hindi inlay on this guitar:
More pictures and details can be found on my website.
